Biden’s menthol ban ignites divisions in black community

Several left-wing civil rights groups that represent African American interests have taken opposite positions on the Biden administration’s new initiative to ban menthol cigarettes, according to a report by The Hill.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in 2022 that it would begin a rulemaking process to ban menthol, an organic compound, from being used as a flavor in cigarettes to discourage smoking. After the FDA submitted its final rule to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in November, the administration announced that it would delay the final implementation of the ban due to opposition from black civil rights activists, amid the widespread use of menthol cigarettes in the black community, The Hill reported.

“The National Action Network has followed the lead of Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who was killed by police during a cigarette enforcement stop. She, Attorney Ben Crump, and others have raised concerns that this ban will lead to unintended consequences for Black people,” wrote a spokesperson for the National Action Network (NAN), a civil rights group headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton, to The Hill. The NAN has reportedly met with administration officials to dissuade them from implementing it, with black voters being a core constituency of the Democratic Party.

Other black civil rights activists, meanwhile, disagree with this position. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has called Sharpton and Crump’s opposition a “manufactured argument.”

“No one has raised this as a political issue … outside of a manufactured argument we began to hear about a week and a half [before the delay],” wrote Derrick Johnson, the NAACP’s president and CEO, to the Hill. “[The black community is concerned about] the price of gas, bread, the future of their children, the safety of their communities. Those are the political questions happening on the ground.”

The delay has frustrated black leaders who believe that Biden is putting the politics of black votes ahead of health and safety for the community.

“Unfortunately, that’s what Biden himself seems to be most concerned about and not concerned about saving [b]lack lives,” wrote Phillip Gardiner, co-chair of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, to The Hill.

Outside the black community, the ban has many influential supporters among both Democrats and activists, including Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, whose state of Illinois includes Chicago, a city that has often been called the “heart of black America.”

“For decades, menthol cigarettes, in particular, have been marketed aggressively to the African American community in the United States, through free samples, sponsorship of cultural events, and heavy advertising,” Durbin said on the Senate floor in December. “[T]oday 85 percent of black smokers use menthol cigarettes compared to 30 percent of white smokers … black adults are 30 percent more likely to die from heart disease and 50 percent more likely to die from stroke.”

Several other black political leaders, such as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, St. Louis Mayor Tishura Jones, and New Orleans Mayor LaTonya Cantrell, have supported the ban.

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